Light Holiday Fare

Most of the creative nonfiction and poetry I write tends to end up feeling fairly serious, albeit with a tiny twist of dry humor threaded throughout, rising along the surface of the piece every so often.  But sometimes it’s good to abandon oneself to a hearty belly laugh.  Here’s a poem I wrote about the importance of laughter which was published in The Black Boot, Issue 8.  And have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

Laughing Babies

*

In seventh grade I was sent

to the principal’s office six times for laughing,

my giggles chronic hiccups

that rode the curb like a skateboard

until I wanted to bail from fear of the crash.

I held on, never jumped.  My girlfriends

and I were making fun for ourselves.

*

Have you heard the commercial

with the laughing baby?

Not a smiling infant, slippery pink gums

peeking from behind the O

of the open baby mouth,

not tentative giggles

searching out questions for the world.

But a big baby guffaw, a Mississippi of sound

catching me in the solar plexus

where my own laugh begins.

*

We’re hardwired for this hidden language,

more powerful than books

or paintings.

We laugh together

and at nothing at all.

###

In the spirit of laughter, here’s a website devoted to laughing babies:

http://www.break.com/topics/laughing-babies

and another:

http://www.laughingbabies.org/

And here’s one of the laughing baby videos from Youtube:

11 Comments

Filed under Poetry

11 responses to “Light Holiday Fare

  1. What a great poem, Luanne, I love the O of the laughing baby’s mouth. the hard-wired hidden language, the laughing at nothing at all. Happy Thanksgiving to you, too!

    • lucewriter

      Happy Thanksgiving, Wilma! I love laughing. Probably why I write a lot of hahas where they look kind of ridiculous haha.

  2. love a Mississippi of sound — so evocative–but I would expect nothing less from another Luanne – LouAnn

  3. lucewriter

    LouAnn, I love that we share a name! I used to love that M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I we used to recite to learn how to spell the state when we were kids! What a great word.

  4. Lisa DeNike Ercolano

    You already know that I love this whole thing: the intro and especially the poem. Thanks for lifting my spirits so early in the morning. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, and remember to share a laugh with someone you love tomorrow. It’s good for the soul.

  5. lucewriter

    Yes, so good for the soul, Lisa, and mental health too :). I’m glad you enjoyed it!

  6. exiledprospero

    How infectious that precocious laugh!

  7. Memories of laughing uncontrollably with my girlfriends over nothing at all! This post brought back a lot! I got sent out in the hall in the 4th grade for making fun of a story with another student that the teacher was reading aloud to us….. just could NOT control myself. For the rest of that school year I lived in dread that the teacher would call my mother about the incident…. she never did and I didn’t tell my mom about it until I was well into my 40’s! (Maybe that teacher remembered laughing uncontrollably as well?) Thanks for sharing this.

    • lucewriter

      I love that story! So glad the teacher didn’t bust you! My teachers and the librarian especially really put up with a lot, but they would have to send me down the hall when I wouldn’t stop at all and our principal would say “don’t irritate your teacher any more” and send me back to class ;).

  8. “a Mississippi of sound” is beautiful. I love this.

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